BDS and Hamas: The New Partnership

Hamas is pinning high hopes on BDS to pave the way for the destruction of Israel through boycotts, divestment and sanctions. Hamas believes that such tools are no less important than rockets and suicide bombings, which have thus far failed to achieve the goal of wiping Israel off the face of the earth.

U.S. universities that allow the BDS activists to disseminate their hate against Israel are unaware that these people are serving as Hamas ambassadors. Moreover, Western governments, above all the U.S., are unaware that Hamas and BDS allies also consider them enemies of the Palestinians.

What Bahr is actually saying is that the BDS campaign should be intensified until Israel is forced to surrender and accept all the demands of Hamas, which include, of course, ending the existence of Israel.

While the anti-Israel activities of the BDS movement have emboldened Hamas, they have also undermined those Palestinians who believe in peace and coexistence with Israel. If BDS supporters really care about Palestinians, why don't they go to the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian territories to promote reforms, democracy, freedom of speech and the rights of women under the rule of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority? BDS seems to be more about promoting Hamas's agenda than advancing the cause of peace.

Hamas has found new allies: the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Over the past few weeks, Hamas leaders have expressed deep satisfaction with the work of the BDS activists around the world. Hamas is convinced that the anti-Israel campaign will ultimately pave the way for the elimination of Israel.

For Hamas, this is not just about boycotting or imposing sanctions against Israel. Rather, it is about delegitimizing and isolating Israel, and turning it into a rogue state that has no right to exist.

That is why Hamas today believes that it shares a common goal with the BDS movement -- namely to destroy Israel. As far as Hamas is concerned, BDS is not about putting an end to Israeli "occupation," but about ending the existence of Israel.

Hamas supports the BDS campaign to boycott Israeli products, companies and academic institutions. But Hamas, which seeks to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamic state, believes that such measures are not enough. Hamas wants BDS supporters to step up their activities so that it can achieve its goal of eliminating Israel.

Hamas leaders have expressed deep satisfaction with the work of the BDS activists around the world.

Now that most of the Arab countries -- including Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- have turned their backs on Hamas, the Islamist movement considers the BDS movement its natural partner in the fight against Israel. The leaders of Hamas in the Gaza Strip are rubbing their hands with satisfaction as they follow the anti-Israel activities of BDS supporters on university campuses in the US, Canada, Australia and Britain.

Hamas views these BDS activities as an extension of the campaign to destroy Israel that the Islamist movement has been waging since its founding in 1988. While Hamas has been unable to send its representatives to speak to students and professors at the university campuses, BDS supporters seem to be doing the job on its behalf.

The U.S. universities that allow BDS activists to disseminate their hate against Israel are unaware that these people are serving as Hamas's ambassadors. Moreover, Western governments, above all the U.S., are unaware that Hamas and its BDS allies also consider them enemies of the Palestinians.

Here is what senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq had to say about the U.S. Administration's public opposition to the anti-Israel BDS campaign: "The attempts by the U.S. Administration to prevent the rise of the political, economic and academic boycott against Israel makes it complicit in the crimes and terror against the Palestinian people."

Heaping praise on the BDS advocates and activists, the Hamas official openly admitted that the ultimate goal of the BDS campaign was to destroy Israel. "We call for escalating the campaign to isolate the occupation and end the existence of its usurper entity," he added.

When Hamas talks about "ending the existence of the usurper entity," it is actually repeating its main goal of eliminating Israel.

Al-Risheq's remarks show that Hamas is pinning high hopes on BDS to pave the way for the destruction of Israel through boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

Hamas believes that such tools are no less important than rockets and suicide bombings, which have thus far failed to achieve the goal of wiping Israel off the face of the earth.

Another senior Hamas official, Ahmed Bahr, also went out of his way recently to applaud the work of the BDS movement in delegitimizing and demonizing Israel. However, Bahr said that boycotting Israeli products and companies was "insufficient." He called for forming a Palestinian and international working team that would coordinate the BDS campaign, intensify efforts to "isolate" Israel and force it to "succumb" to Palestinian demands. He, too, lashed out at the U.S. for opposing the anti-Israel campaign.

What Bahr is actually saying is that the BDS campaign should be intensified until Israel is forced to surrender and accept all the demands of Hamas, which include ending the existence of Israel. Like al-Risheq, Bahr is also optimistic that the work of the BDS movement could eventually help Hamas achieve its goal of destroying Israel.

Last week, Hamas leaders had another reason to celebrate. This time, it was over a decision by the British National Union of Students to boycott Israel. Hamas was the first Palestinian group to applaud the decision and call on other groups in the international community to follow suit and boycott Israel.

While the anti-Israel activities of the BDS movement have emboldened Hamas, they have also undermined those Palestinians who continue to believe in peace and coexistence with Israel. Many BDS supporters are also opposed to any meetings between Israelis and Palestinians, and opposed to security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. Like Hamas, many in the BDS movement want the PA to boycott not only Israeli products, but also peace talks with Israel.

Until now, the BDS movement has failed to offer the Palestinians anything good. It wants Palestinian workers to boycott Israeli companies, but has not been able to offer them an alternative source of income. If BDS supporters really care about Palestinians, why don't they go to the Gaza Strip and try to promote the rights of women living under Hamas rule? Why don't they come to the Palestinian territories and try to promote reforms, democracy and freedom of speech under the PA and Hamas?

At the end of the day, BDS seems to be more about hating Israel than helping the Palestinians. And BDS seems to be more about promoting Hamas's agenda than advancing the cause of peace in this part of the world.

Comment on this item

Name:

Email Address:

Comments:

Email me if someone replies to my comment

Note: Gatestone Institute greatly appreciates your comments. The editors reserve the right, however, not to publish comments containing: incitement to violence, profanity, or any broad-brush slurring of any race, ethnic group or religion. Gatestone also reserves the right to edit comments for length, clarity and grammar. All thoughtful suggestions and analyses will be gratefully considered. Commenters' email addresses will not be displayed publicly. Gatestone regrets that, because of the increasingly great volume of traffic, we are not able to publish them all.

15 Reader Comments

noahnoah • Jun 18, 2015 at 09:33

We just placed a large order for Israeli goods, and will continue to do so.

Reply->

JohnB • Jun 14, 2015 at 12:00

I support Israel and will buy their products. BDS is from the Muslims in Europe with some support from the anti-Israel sympathizers in the native populations.

Reply->

steven L • Jun 13, 2015 at 00:04

The EU is preparing their OWN anti-Israel BDS!!!

Reply->

Henry Saltsman • Jun 12, 2015 at 13:56

Frankly, my hat is off to Prime Minister Netanyahu who demonstrates remarkable restraint and courage in the face of the thugs and morale weaklings who demonstrate such ignorance and nefarious and phony philosophies from the surrounding states. Those who sing the songs of destruction and Jewish eradication should themselves be concerned with a like fate. There is a great deal of support here in America for those who would (and I speak for myself here) love to see Israel pursue a more pro-active role in the Middle East!! Certainly, the administration in the U.S. could learn a few things from such a superb leader as Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Reply->

Syd. Kaminsky • Jun 12, 2015 at 12:56

Khaled always says it as it is. If a Jewish commentator had said this it would be dismissed by Israel's detractors as right wing propaganda. It is clear that Israeli Arabs as well as Israeli Jews can see BDS for what it is.

Reply->

Keith Weinberg • Jun 12, 2015 at 12:52

Maybe this was new a few years ago. It's been pretty clear in the US, with all the Palestinian flags at BDS rallies, that the two groups have been intimate since the beginning of BDS.

Reply->

AmericanMom • Jun 12, 2015 at 11:35

The last two paragraphs says it all. They are more interested in hate than in real human rights.

Reply->

Gnarlodious • Jun 12, 2015 at 10:30

...that if you can't get your way by whining, you should pick up a gun.

Reply->

judithg • Jun 12, 2015 at 09:57

Rulers change and the world is shifting into something we can only know in retrospect after it has taken shape. My older sister pointed this out to me regarding WW2, because I had been born into a golden age of victory over evil. We didn't know, she said, probably annoyed by some comment I made to her, that we would win.

In all of this chaos happening now, we don't know who the winners will be. We do know that we have an ineffectual and apathetic president who has no interest in protecting and defending democracies or even supporting those peoples struggling for democracy like the Kurds or those trapped in Islamic jihad societies who cannot escape its savagery.

Israel, always the beacon of light in the Middle East, has now become a beacon for the world that no longer shines from the United States of America.

Sharia and jihad and Jew hating, in fact, has insinuated itself in all our institutions as if there is some benefit to us to eschew our rights and freedoms and decry the exceptionalism of what was once the world's most noble experiment.

Reply->

Ronald • Jun 12, 2015 at 08:59

"...why don't they..." go to Palestine and seek reforms so Israel can live in peace with them?

Two reasons:

1. As a result of anti-Israel propaganda, they hate Israel more than they care about individual Palestinians, and

2. The Palestinian/Hamas goal is not a two state "solution" because the "problem ", as they define it religiously, is how to remove an infidel state from lands the Muslims took from the infidel during the 1,000-year-long Muslim Conquest. This they spell out in Article Eleven of the Hamas Covenant.

Until supporters of Israel understand this fundamental fact, they will continue to press the wrong arguments and mis-define the "problem" -- which from the Palestinian perspective is not primarily the lack of peace.

Reply->

Paul Sutliff • Jun 12, 2015 at 08:11

BDS started in most areas of America through the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). SJP was started by Hatem Bazian who it has long been thought was and is a Hamas agent.

The BDS movement in America has long been paired with the Muslim Student Association also, which is the Muslim Brotherhood in North America. Hamas is a chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Reply->

mels. • Jun 12, 2015 at 07:54

The anti-Israel BDS groups are in reality McCarthyite groups whose supporters not only lie but use fear tactics against opponents. They disallow free speech and their violence against workers and goods in UK supermarkets (trashing goods from shelves and threatening customers) is known, but unfortunately, like most things regarding Muslim Extremism in Britain, this is not well aired by the media.

Reply->

Jack Holan • Jun 12, 2015 at 07:28

Did Hamas ever go back on the European list of terror groups or did they stay off because of that judges ruling Summer 2014? If there was ever any doubt in European minds where Hamas stands regarding peace with Israel, this article clarifies it. Besides their Charter calls for the murder of Jews worldwide, wherever they may be found. They mean exactly what they say, so why do you doubt them? Hitler meant what he wrote in Mein Kampf; no one really believed him either until he carried it out. So the UN's Ban, the US's, Obama, and the EU's Federica will push Israel to "negotiate" (predetermined resorts) with a phantom partner the PA/Hamas who says they have no intention to do so unless they receive all their points. BDS is a full partner in the tactical war.

Reply->

Solomon Balas • Jun 12, 2015 at 06:58

I admire Khalid Abu Toameh's fearlessly candid articles on Palestinian Arabs; an almost impossible task faces those among them desiring general enlightenment through education and who would given a choice opt for peace, is due to Islam's religious leaders who for at least 500 years blocked education and knowledge, instead imposing a blanket of dark ignorance teaching children hatred and dogma, as if the world stood still for 1400 years. There will never be peace as long as the majority of Muslims remain within their practical "Jaheli" state.

Reply->

Dean • Jun 12, 2015 at 06:29

"While the anti-Israel activities of the BDS movement have emboldened Hamas, they have also undermined those Palestinians who believe in peace and coexistence with Israel."

Show me a "Palestinian" who believes in peace and coexistence with Israel. There are none to be found.

Peace to Palestinians means the end of Jews. They will not live with Jews or others in any new Cro-Magnon state that they want to create -- they have said so. They want an Apartheid state like all other Islamic states and terror entities in the region.